Words & Swords

May 26, 2017

Access to Mada Masr’s website via most of Egypt’s internet service providers (ISPs) has been blocked since Wednesday evening.

The country’s official state news agency, MENA, quoted
a high-level security source on Wednesday night as saying that access
to 21 websites, which had disseminated “content that supports terrorism
and extremism and deliberately spreads lies,” had been blocked in Egypt
in accord with “relevant legal proceedings.”

Mada Masr has not been officially informed that any party has taken official or legal measures against it.

Several
other websites have also been blocked, including two Egyptian
publications: Masr al-Arabiya and the website of the print weekly
Al-Mesryoon. The list also includes some Qatari or Qatar-funded news
outlets that support or are managed by the Muslim Brotherhood, principal
among them Al Jazeera and Huffington Post Arabic, in addition to the
official website for Palestinian political movement Hamas.

The
statement from the high-level security source was circulated to
newspapers and wire services from the office of the presidency, Mada
Masr has learned. Speaking on the condition of anonymity, Interior
Ministry officials have told reporters that they had nothing to do with
drafting or executing the decision to block the websites.

The move
to block access to a range of websites affiliated with Qatar and the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt happened in conjunction with Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirate’s decision to block many of the same sites.
Egyptian authorities added Mada Masr to its list, however.

Mada Masr’s website is still accessible in Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

In
response to Mada Masr’s inquiry into the restriction of access to its
website, Supreme Media Regulatory Council Secretary General Ahmed Selim
said that the council, formed in April, has yet to take over control of
digital media outlets. He directed inquiries to the Communication and
Information Technology Ministry.

Mada Masr attempted to contact
National Telecom Regulatory Authority head and Communication and
Information Technology Minister Yasser al-Qady. His secretary
acknowledged receipt of the questions and said a further response would
be pending. As of publication, Mada has yet to receive a reply.

Mada
also contacted newly elected Journalists Syndicate head Abdel Mohsen
Salama, who said he was monitoring the situation closely but was not
aware that access to Egyptian websites had been blocked. He asked Mada
to draft a memo detailing the circumstances of the incident, which he
would then submit to the Supreme Media Regulatory Council.

Faced
with an absence of information from official sources, Mada Masr turned
to technical experts, who diagnosed an RST injection attack as the
reason for the inability to access the website.

What is a RST injection attack?

The
internet is a network made up of computers and the electronic messages
and packets of IP (internet protocol) data that pass between them. The
transmission of the information that constitutes this system is
formalized in various systems called “protocols.”

IP is the most
basic protocol used on the internet, and it is usually coupled with TCP
(transmission control protocol), which is used for web browsing and
email. Data on computers is broken down into a series of ones and zeros.
Each zero or one represents the smallest data unit in the language of
computer communication. Data packets sent via TCP contain a block of
information called a TCP header, which includes details concerning the
sending and receiving parties in the exchange. In normal communications,
the TCP header’s bit is set to zero and has no effect on communication.
If the value is changed to one, the computers party to the exchange are
notified that they should stop using the TCP connection and should no
longer send any more packets using the connection’s identifying numbers.

A
third party can monitor TCP packets being sent from various points of a
connection and then interject a forged packet containing a TCP reset
command that will change the bit of the header from zero to one. The
connection is interrupted with each attempt to complete the
communication.
One of the most famous examples of a RST injection
attack involves the firewall that China uses to censor and suspend
access to a number of websites.

This is the type of interruption which has blocked access to Mada Masr’s website in Egypt.

Continuing attempts to control the internet

Attempts
to open the sites that have been blocked in Egypt have yielded a range
of behaviors across ISPs. For example, most sites can be accessed via
Noor ADSL.

Mada Masr has received various reports from users,
pointing to the fact that the block is not uniformly in force, varying
across the same ISPs at different geographical locations and times. This
suggests that the RST attack has been decentralized and enforced by
individual ISPs.

The recent interference intersects with the government’s decision to block The New Arab website last year. An October 2016 report
on anomalies in Egypt’s online ecology conducted by the Open
Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) — an international network
operating under the Tor Project
that monitors internet censorship, traffic manipulation and signs of
surveillance — found that the injected RST packet observed to obstruct
user-server communication with The New Arab website had the same “static
IP identification (IP ID) value of 0x3412 as the injected RST packets”
used in an attempt to interfere with Tor in Egypt. This similarity is
significant, as The New Arab, which is Qatari funded and sympathetic to
the Muslim Brotherhood, is known to be blocked by the Egyptian
government, suggesting that a state agency using the same server
location conducted the RST injection attacks on Tor.

The same technique was used in December to disrupt Signal, the messaging and voice calling application supported by Open Whisper Systems’ encryption protocol.

Much of this evidence suggests an image of the Egyptian government as directly involved in a practice of mass surveillance, as documented in a January report published by Mada Masr.
These
events are part of a wider history of the state’s attempt to control
the internet, a principal concern since the January 2011 revolution and
one that has risen to the surface in numerous arrests made recently in
connection with the administration of Facebook pages. The government is
also currently preparing legislation to combat cybercrime.

In
a joint policy report published in June 2016 under the title
“Anti-Technology,” the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR),
Support for Information Technology Center, and the Association for
Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE) wrote that the law “violates
the principle of equality before the law and contains penalties
regarding the use of information technology.”

A month earlier, in March, Google published a statement
asserting that it had became “aware of unauthorized digital
certificates for several Google domains” issued by an intermediate
certificate authority held by Egyptian company MCS Holdings, which had been contracted by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) to issue certificates for domains they had registered.

“Rather than keep the private key in a suitable HSM,
MCS installed it in a man-in-the-middle proxy,” the Google statement
read. “These devices intercept secure connections by masquerading as the
intended destination and are sometimes used by companies to intercept
their employees’ secure traffic for monitoring or legal reasons.”

In a previous report,
Mada Masr highlighted leaked documents that emerged after Cairo’s State
Security headquarters was stormed by protesters in March 2011, which
showed that MCS had been corresponding with Egypt’s State Security
Investigation Service (SSIS) to obtain the FinFisher system,
surveillance software offered by the British-German company Gamma
International.

The move to block and shut down websites is a new
step from these recent forms of interference. The government is turning
from mass surveillance, to directly intervening to block access to the
websites of Egyptian companies operating in Egypt, including Mada Masr
and Masr al-Arabiya.

The legality of blocking access to websites

Access
to websites in Egypt can be legally curtailed in two ways, says Amr
Gharbeia, a technology and human rights researcher at the EIPR. The
first is tied to the issuance of an order either by a prosecutor or
investigating judge, or, during a state of emergency, when the president
can move to block access in his capacity as military governor.
President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared a three-month state of emergency
on April 9.

The second mechanism concerns the anti-terrorism law,
Article 29 of which stipulates a five-year prison term for anyone who
“establishes a telecommunications or internet site to promote ideas or
beliefs that encourage committing terrorist acts or to broadcast
[information] to mislead security agencies or influence the course of
justice with regard to a crime of terrorism.”

“If there is a
website being investigated for one of the aforementioned crimes, Article
49 of the anti-terrorism law allows the public prosecutor or
investigating judge to suspect or block the entire website or the
content relevant to Article 29,” says Hassan al-Azhary, a lawyer with
AFTE. Azhary says it is likely that the decision to block access to Mada
Masr’s website comes in accord with an order emanating from Egypt’s
judiciary.

Gharbeia points out that there may be a third option in
play, which he says is more dangerous, namely that the government asked
ISPs to block the websites in question, and that they complied in a
manner outside of legal bounds.

If that is the case, there are two
violations, according Gharbeia: one against freedom of expression and
one against the sovereignty of law.

How to work around the block

The Electronic Federation Foundation has published is a simple guide detailing how to regain access to blocked websites and circumvent censorship.

March 08, 2017

„I love a woman who hates me, who screams at me and calls me names, who demeans me, a woman who curses me and calls me her enemy, and who shows no kindness to no one.“

„Wow, this sounds bad. What does she do?“

„She beats her kids, tortures them even out of vileness and kills some. She says she has to do this for the security of her other children, but it is in truth because those kids talked back to her and she won‘t take that and has no mercy, no humanity in her. Just cursing and beating and killing. And neglecting them, letting them go dirty and hungry to bed without caring or doing something to make their life bearable. While she eats the best food and is interested only in her own good. A terrible mother.“

„That‘s awful.“

„It is. But she tells me, I am out to destroy her. – But I do nothing. Merely criticising her – and rightly so, I should say – for the horrific way she treats her children. I don‘t know what to do.“

„You love the woman? Why?“

„I don*t know. There is beauty in her, real beauty. If only she would allow for it to be seen.“

„But a woman who acts like that one cannot love. Impossible.“

„I know. But I cannot help it. I don‘t understand it myself. But I can‘t get myself to withdraw and leave her.“

„This is awful. What is the woman called.“

„Egypt. She‘s called Egypt.“

„You have a problem.“

„I have to face facts. I‘m in the most abusive relationship of my life.“

February 03, 2017

... on the contrary. Things have become worse since you were murdered four years ago. Your killer is free again and there is still no respect for the life of Egyptians.

Three years ago, I wrote this

Letter to my Avatar – My dear little Omar Salah ...

one year ago to this day you were selling sweet potatoes on a street in Cairo near the U.S. embassy. It was not something you did out of choice, but because your family is poor and needs you to help secure an income. There was nothing special about this February 3rd, 2013, Cairo was calm and sunny, and nothing prepared you, when you left your home in the morning, for what was to come.

It was about noon, when a soldier came up to your cart and demanded from you to sell him two potatoes. You urgently needed to go to the bathroom at that moment and told him you would attend to him right when you would be back. The soldier did not accept this and threatened you with his gun saying he was going to shoot you if you didn't serve him immediately.

You were just a 12 year old boy. What could you know about the defects of human minds or the willingness of adults to be vicious? You did not believe him and in the innocent mind that was your right to have with 12 years of age you replied: "But you can't shoot me!"

To this the soldier replied: "I can't?" And then he pulled the trigger and shot you twice in your little heart. You were dead immediately.

The shock this had on those who witnessed it around you, was profound. The other children street vendors cried out and emotions ran high while your blood was spilling onto the street of Cairo. Amongst the soldiers, heated discussions started and the whole situation quickly became a mess.

The U.S. embassy tweeted that there had been an 'incident' in front of their gates but gave no details. For quite some time no one was aware what horror had just happened under the sunny sky of Egypt. And with the first shock subsiding that you indeed were dead right there on the street and for all to see, the military and police started frantically to do anything they could to cover up this horrific crime against you.

While your mother and father sat at home unaware they had lost you forever, the army took your little body to a morgue and covered you hoping that no one would find you and no one would find out. For accepting that one of theirs had killed you in cold blood and take responsibility for this action is not on the mind of the army of Egypt.

You must know, little Omar, that you are not the only one they killed, and not the only one they did not care for after he was dead. Over a year before you left us they had shot dead many protesters at Maspero and ran others over with heavy APCs. Again, later, they killed many at the Cabinet clashes. And so it goes on and on until today, for killing someone is the job of an army, they think. And they don't differentiate between borders or cities, it doesn't matter where they use their guns, they always think that they are in the right to kill. For no other but them has any right to a life. Only a right to be disrespected when – in the eyes of the army – the situation calls for it.

Of course, on that day one year ago, your killing had nothing to do with defending anybody. The soldier who killed you did not feel threatened or feared for the safety of Egypt. He simply expressed what he had learned as a conscript: that you as an Egyptian human being were not worth anything and that your life was cheap enough to be destroyed.

After your father had frantically tried to find you, aided by friends and NGO workers, your little blood stained body was finally found in the morgue. At first again the army tried to deny it had anything to do with this. But as pressure mounted and more and more witnesses spoke up to what they saw that day, the spokesperson felt it would hurt the army more to stay cowardly quiet than to come out with it and he put a statement on their Facebook page declaring your death an "accident" for which he offered your heartbroken parents his "apology".

The story goes that the soldier did not really mean to shoot you. He had thought that his gun was empty – because apparently Egyptian soldiers don't learn how to find out if their gun is loaded or empty and never load them themselves. It must be some hidden force that either loads their guns or not and then falls silent on the matter so that a soldier who carries his gun through Cairo is never aware whether he can actually use it or not. It seems an odd way to run an army or a disturbing way they play games, but then, my little Omar, there are so many odd things surrounding them that one does not wonder much anymore these days. Of course, after the soldier fired the first shot into your heart realising the gun was loaded after all, he had to fire a second time into your heart just to make sure he wasn't mistaken. That we understand. The army is a responsible body and what must be done must be done to make certain that facts are facts. Even in accidents.

Shortly after the world learned what had happened to you on that wonderful sunny February day in Cairo, a video surfaced on YouTube showing you only a few weeks earlier when you were interviewed on the street by an organisation helping needy children, checking whether you might be eligible for their projects.

You were humble and well-mannered but a little shy and uneasy what they would come up with and whether you would be good enough for what they were looking for in you. You told them quietly that you had to sell sweet potatoes because your family was poor and your father had wanted you to support the family. And in all shyness you disclosed into the camera that you would love to go to school and learn to read and write.

When the interviewer asked what you're dreams were, you looked away and were uneasy on this. And then you answered him. You said: "I cannot afford dreams, Sir." And you looked into the camera and then down again as if you were ashamed for this that was none of your fault.

Seeing this video of you, dear little Omar, broke many peoples heart. Hearing that you could not afford to dream, which is a basic human right for a child, and knowing you were not even allowed to live, was unbearable to witness. Seeing your wonderful eyes, your look of modesty, shyness and subdued hope, your life might one day, just might perhaps change for the better in some far-away future after all, teared us apart. It was then that I took your picture and made it my avatar on twitter. I wanted to give you your face back that had been left so sad and soiled and empty of life after the soldier had shot you dead.

There was no justice for you after all this. On public pressure of human rights activists and your family that the army tried to silence with money, a military trial was finally staged that we all never had any witnessing to. Only afterwards we were told that the soldier who shot you dead – just like that, on a sunny day in a street of Cairo – received a sentence of three years by the military judge.

Imagine that, Omar, three years for killing you and destroying your life forever. Do you know that Ahmed Maher and Mohamed Adel, activists of the January 25 revolution, got just the same sentence of three years for allegedly staging a protest without a permission? So killing you, in the eyes of the army, apparently was not worse than going out to protest without requesting a permit. You see what I mean when I say, we do not understand the ways of the army, but we trust they know well what they do?

One year on, my dear little Omar, I have thought long and deep over whether I would let you rest now in your little grave and put a shroud over your wonderful eyes that I see everyday on my twitter timeline. On twitter people have not a very long attention span, you must know. They easily get bored seeing the same avatar over and over for months and need changes a lot to be easy. And many times when I write critical tweets, some tweeps who do not know me or you come and slam me with words like: "Shut up, kid" – actually thinking, I was you and not a grown up man with 35 years working experience. They don't take my words seriously, because – just like the soldier – they think, a young boy has no value and no meaning and must not be respected. l cringe sometimes when I read their "kid", knowing they mean you, and feel the pain of your death they are unaware of and don't understand, and then I tell them to read my profile and come to the conclusion that whoever has no heart for you in his reaction is not worth thinking about anyway. And leave it at that.

It would be so much easier now to let you rest, my little friend, after this long year of tears and pains and death that has sweeped Egypt empty of so many hopes for a decent life, for justice and freedom and bread. On twitter they would jubilate to see a fresh face. The army would love to not have to see you anymore in the public sphere. The tweeps I criticise would not be able to slam me anymore with calling me 'kid'. We would all be so much happier, dear little Omar, if we forgot about what happened a year ago and that we can't change what happened to you after all.

But then, Omar, what can we change if we don't remember? What possibilities will we manage to create if we fall silent and look away and pretend it is all not as sad, not as bad, not as tragic as it actually is? Since your death more than a thousand Egyptians were killed, and they give us many reasons why that, different to you, was not an accident but needed to happen. But apparently they can 'live' with it just as easily. A strange tale has crept into the narrative that pretends that destroying Egyptian lives is inevitable and must be accepted, as if death more than life was the natural thing of the world that one can shrug off to return to the daily pleasures and chores. With every death of human beings falling bloodied in the streets of Egypt we are told to believe that nothing of this can be changed because it is the way of the world. And when we look away and shut our ears to the cries of the mothers and fathers of Egypt who, whether they agreed with their children or not, break down over losing what was precious to them forever and think they just cannot go on anymore, we change the world for the worst, where dying becomes the natural thing and living is just a luxury granted by some in power – whether we are lucky or not.

It must not be luck, little Omar, whether we live. It must be a right, a birth given right that no one must be allowed to take from us. Not with any form of being deliberate, calling it an accident to fool us or an inevitable need to fool us twice. If we don't insist on this, that life is the right and death is the wrong, we have lost everything that makes it worth existing on this planet we call the earth.

You had no dreams, Omar, because we did not allow you to be able to afford them. On that already we all failed you miserably. Your parents to this day cry over your death and will not forget the pain in their heart. Your eyes look at me on my avatar with all the shy innocence that was you in your modest way and I think of the narrative that all this has to be, is inevitable and not worse than going to a protest and forgetting to get a permission. So your killing has the value of a petty crime and your death is worth as much as not filling out a form. And I look at your eyes and mine fill with tears.

Let them laugh about it, for all I care. The other day I saw your picture on the internet, just the one that is my avatar that I see every day. But when I saw it, my little Omar, my heart stopped still. Like yours did on that fateful February 3rd a year ago, when a soldier thought you were worth nothing and could be done away with. When I recovered from this shock, that did not seem to make any sense, I knew I would not fail you and not leave you until justice is served. To you, Omar, who could not afford to have wishes and were not allowed to have hope – and to all the others that have lost a life that was dear to them when others decided it was not.

You will stay my avatar, my little Omar. I will tell you when Egypt is ready that we can part. Just now is not yet the time. Be patient. It will still take a long time. But where life is at stake, you know it well, time and patience means nothing. Life means all.

June 16, 2016

I can't believe that after just four days I have to write another obituary on a wonderful woman shot dead by a maniac with a gun.

Another dark day for us all. Today Labour MP Jo Cox, mother of two little children, was shot and stabbed to death in broad daylight when she left a library in her constituency in Yorkshire. Britain is in shock and the flag on Parliament has been lowered to half-mast. Tributes pour in from all political sides.

Voted into the parliament only a year ago Jo Cox fascinated everyone with her sharp mind, clear cut rhetoric and determined engagement for those in need. As one of the very few in Labour, MP Jo Cox was on the side of the people of Syria, stood up for Aleppo and fought for refugee children to be allowed into Britain. I cannot hail her enough for her unwavering solidarity with the victims of Assad‘s and Russia‘s atrocities in Syria.

Just six weeks ago in parliament, MP Jo Cox held a passionate speech regarding Syria demanding answers from the Minister on many questions still vital and valid today. Watch her speak and be inspired by her determination, her compassion and her energy.

It breaks the heart to know she is gone. But she leaves a legacy that demands from us to fill her place wherever we can and continue on her path of love vs. hate.

Think about the refugee children from Syria who have gone through hell and remember the words of Jo Cox:

Only yesterday, Jo Cox was on the Thames to campaign for Britain to stay in the EU, something she was as passionate about as the children from Syria. Together with her husband Brendan she took her own lovely two little children on the boat ride and it is impossible to comprehend how these two angels will survive that their mother won't ever kiss them again.

The death of Jo Cox is a tragedy on a very personal, family level. – But it is also a tragedy for Britain, losing one of the most energetic and compassionate MPs she had.

It poses question too whether the hate spewing of those, who – like Jo Cox's killer – shouted "Britain First", has not seriously paved the way for the unspeakable crime of today that robbed a young woman of her life, a husband of his wife and two children of their mother.

In his piece A Day of Infamy, Alex Massie today puts the problem in a nutshell:

"We know that even lone lunatics don’t live in a bubble. ... When you encourage rage you cannot then feign surprise when people become enraged. You cannot turn around and say, ‘Mate, you weren’t supposed to take it so seriously. It’s just a game, just a ploy, a strategy for winning votes.’

When you shout BREAKING POINT over and over again, you don’t get to be surprised when someone breaks. ... If you spend days, weeks, months, years telling people they are under threat, that their country has been stolen from them, that they have been betrayed and sold down the river, that their birthright has been pilfered, that their problem is they’re too slow to realise any of this is happening, that their problem is they’re not sufficiently mad as hell, then at some point, in some place, something or someone is going to snap. And then something terrible is going to happen.

We can’t control the weather but, in politics, we can control the climate in which the weather happens. That’s on us, all of us, whatever side of any given argument we happen to be. Today, it feels like we’ve done something terrible to that climate.

I cannot recall ever feeling worse about this country and its politics than is the case right now."

It is time, Britain, to take a deep breath and alter course. The murder of Jo Cox today is a warning sign if ever there was one.

Two hours after Jo Cox was pronounced dead, her husband Brendan issued a statement, saying:

„Jo believed in a better world and she fought for it every day of her life with an energy, and a zest for life that would exhaust most people.She would have wanted two things above all else to happen now, one that our precious children are bathed in love and two, that we all unite to fight against the hatred that killed her. Hate doesn't have a creed, race or religion, it is poisonous.“

Let‘s honour Jo Cox by fulfilling her wish. It is the least we can and the thing we must do.

June 12, 2016

On Friday night I was performing with a choir and a Shakespeare Company in a wonderful open-air venue in front of an audience that showered us with applause. Today I learn the shocking news that Christina Grimmie (@TheRealGrimmie on twitter) was shot on the same night after her performance in Orlando. While we revelled deep into the night in our bliss of an audience being happy, on the other side of the ocean Christina was killed when she signed autographs after her concert, by a man they presume was a deranged fan. She welcomed him with arms open for a hug – and he responded by shooting her.

I am shattered. I have admired her for years for her voice, her talent and her beautiful, friendly, natural ways, ever since I discovered her doing this amazing duet with Sam Tsui:

Today, after hearing the news of the death of 22 year old Christina Grimmie, the words develop a haunting tone, speak of sadness and grief over the senseless killing of someone so young, so willing to give beauty to the world, caring for others and sharing her amazing talent with all. No words can describe the devastation to learn that once more beauty is ruthlessly destroyed by a man unable himself to give beauty to this world. And that obtaining guns in America is so easy and once more leads to a horrific shooting.

We say: R.I.P. Christina. But in our soul we know that you never wanted to rest in peace but sing forever to fill homes, halls and the sky.

When we performed last night once more Shakespeare and music, the sky had this time turned grey at our venue and it began to rain softly. The mood, suddenly so different to Friday, was sombre and the atmosphere inexplicably strained. Now that I heard the news, I think the sky wept over Christina Grimmie‘s killing the night before. It can only have been that.

The sky has her now but it also knows what mortals down here miss. Her voice. Her face. Her smile. Her naturalness.

May you sing to the delight of angels in the sky now, Christina. Music will never stop. Bullets can never achieve this.

No one will accept that this was just a dream. You will be unforgotten by and forever real to those who loved and admired you.

Post scriptum: Only one day later, last night, another deranged man stormed a gay night club in Orlando and fired into the dancing crowd killing at least 50 and injuring 53. The sadness is of unspeakable dimension. May Sam Tsui‘s tribute to you, Christina, be a tribute too to those who were allowed to live only one day longer than you. May you all know that you were loved and will never leave the hearts of your families, friends and admirers. My prayers are with those who miss you all so terribly.

January 13, 2016

After the events of New Years Eve in Germany's city Cologne, where groups of men from North Africa sexually harassed and assaulted women and stole their cell phones and purses, an anonymous report by a German policeman insinuated that some of the culprits were from Syria. There was no proof for this – in fact now we know that only one 20-year old Syrian was involved, the rest are from Algeria and Morocco and apparently pretended to be from Syria. Nevertheless the right-wingers in Germany, at the forefront the Pegida-Movement, slammed refugees from Syria accusing them of raping German women.

To many Syrian refugees who were never involved in the shameful attacks in Cologne, this was a shock and deeply hurtful. To show that they did not condone such actions they initiated a Facebook event and called for a protest on January 16 under the motto: Syrian refugees say no to the assaults of Cologne.

Many Syrians have since commented and posted on this Facebook page and expressed disgust and shame about what happened in Cologne and apologised to the German population.

A German journalist now has responded to these posts, assuring the refugees that there is nothing for them to be ashamed of, nothing to apologise for and explains the reasoning behind his thoughts. In the end he urges the Syrian refugees to be strong and proud and not fall for the trap of the right-wingers who want to sow hate and division in German society.

Here is the letter that is worth a read:
_______________________

Hello,

I am a German. And a journalist. And I am deeply ashamed that so many of you get the feeling that you should be ashamed and have to apologise now. So let me say this:

I am ashamed that so many of my journalist colleagues have used the attacks in Cologne to produce sensational headlines serving their greed for more reader – and totally ignored facts, known numbers – and that they deeply inflict damage with this on all refugees and especially refugees from Syria in Germany. I apologise for these shameful actions.

I am ashamed that in the last year alone Germans have torched over 400 refugee camps and homes, have beaten up refugees, frightened women and children, attacked their buses – even shot at refugees sleeping at night in their beds and wounded them. Those actions are criminal and disgusting and not what Germany is about. I apologise to all refugees for these attacks and especially to those who have been wounded, frightened and robbed of their peace after all they endured fleeing here.

I do. – But at the end of the day – you and I apologise for crimes we did not commit.

And as much as I understand the urge to do something, to say something to make this shame go away, neither you can with your apologies nor I can with mine.

We have to face the fact that in every basket of good apples there are rotting bad apples that ruin it for us all if we don‘t watch out.

Germans are not a pure, innocent breed. We are humans like you with all the good and the bad that comes with it. While right-wingers now produce a huge uproar over the ugly attacks on women at New Years Eve – they never speak up for German women being attacked by Germans, sexually assaulted by Germans or even raped by Germans. And they ignore that we have special institutions in this country where women can and do flee to to save themselves from the brutality of their male companions, husbands or lovers.

No, we Germans are humans like all, and we have terribly bad apples amongst us, men who do not respect women, who assault them sexually and act criminally and disgusting.

We just don‘t talk about it. We don‘t want to point the finger at ourselves.

You however come in handy. If we can point the finger at you – whether rightfully so or not – we can ignore how much bad apples we have amongst ourselves and make you the scapegoat for everything. Then we don‘t have to think about our own actions. And before you know it, everyone is talking about refugees sexually assaulting innocent German women – and no one notices anymore that we do so much bad things ourselves.

It is true – men from North Africa and Arab states, so witnesses tell us, have attacked women on that night and shown shameful aggression. Some men. Some 40, 50 or 60, perhaps 70 men – out of way over 1 million refugees.

If we had so few criminals within our 80 million German population we could be happy. But sadly not. In 2014 we had more than 7,200 reported cases of rapes and sexual assaults on women in Germany, in the vast majority commited by Germans. A shocking number. – We just don‘t talk about it.

The bottom line is that those men who attacked women on New Years Eve where brainless, shameless criminals. It doesn‘t matter where they came from. And the truth is too, that those men who rape and sexually assault women in such horrific numbers in Germany in one year are also brainless, shameless criminals. Their nationality doesn‘t matter a bit. You find criminals all over the world. It is part of the human race, not of one a nation or people.

I am not ashamed as a German when some who call themselves German torch refugee camps. Because I don‘t consider such people Germans in a way that I am German. They are standing outside of any civilisation, and you sadly find such sick people all over the globe. So, I am not ashamed – but I am outraged. Incredibly outraged.

And so you should be. Don‘t be ashamed as refugees or Syrians or Syrian refugees for the action of some sick people who may or may not (we still don‘t know all the facts) have come from a region near you. It means nothing about you as a Syrian, nothing about your dignity, your pride and your decency – and it is not your doing. You did not attack women on New Years Eve and I don‘t torch refugee homes or rape women. These people are not us, they are outside our sphere of civilisation. They simply don‘t belong in this world, but we sadly have to face the fact that they exist. But they are neither Syrian nor German – they are just a sick breed of people we could not manage to heal with education and civilisation.

Besides working as a journalist I took up teaching refugees in northern Germany in October last year because I feel we all have to do something to get you integrated as fast as possible, to give you back a life that will enable you to have a future and be strong and proud and able to support yourself. If we help you to help yourself, you can make it. And you will make it, I am convinced of that.

I have a large number of Syrians in my class. They are the finest people I could possible have come across. Decent, well-mannered, polite, interested to learn, eager to shape their future and find a place in German‘s society. I am blessed to be allowed to teach them.

Last week we talked about the events of New Years Eve. They were outraged, disgusted – and as I could see: hurt. Hurt to get blamed for something they not only did not commit – but something they would never commit. If you are a decent person there is nothing worse than if people insinuate you could do such shameful things. I really felt sorry for them. They did not deserve this.

Here‘s what I told them: Stay proud, stay strong, don‘t let this get to you personally. And if people on the streets now in Germany occasionally look at you with a grim face because of this – just ignore it. We have idiots in our society just as every nation has. But they are not the society. They are just a tiny minority that lacks any compassion, any humanity and any decency. I could apologise for them but I shouldn‘t. They are not me and I am not them, and luckily they are not Germany.

And I gave my ‘pupils‘ this advice: always stay friendly and walk away. And learn German to the best of your abilities, because the better you speak German, the less these idiots will be able to brand you as refugees and will have to accept the fact that you are here and welcome to stay.

Build your future, build your life. The stronger you become the better for us all. In the end we can fight these idiots in societies only if we stick together. Because in attacking you they mean nothing else but to attack us all – the Germans who welcome you, who show humanity and compassion and who treasure this democracy that you are now beginning to be part of. We are not going to give them the pleasure and hand over this democracy and the values of civilisation we have achieved. No such luck. But it is nothing less they hope for when slashing you with insults and accusations for crimes you did not commit.

Let‘s not play their game. You don‘t need to feel ashamed and neither do I. You don‘t have to apologise and I don‘t have to either. In the end we can only win if we keep our heads up high, stay proud and strong and not get deterred by those who want us to fall and fail.

You are here and you will stay here. So are we. Then let‘s do it together and it will be win-win. And the triumph that those idiots had nothing in their helpless little hands but hate – useless, idiotic hate – will give us the strength to build the future. Because what they do not want to understand is this: Your future is ours too. While we help you to build your future, we build our own.

For this reason we need you to be strong. Don‘t hang your head in shame. Keep it up high and proud on your shoulders where it belongs. Only then can we shape a future that will be a gain for us all.

Wishing you all the very best in your new life. Never lose hope. Just never.

____________________________________

The letter has been widely read now on Facebook and commented, with many Syrians expressing gratitude for these words. It can be found here.

August 30, 2015

On Saturday, 29 August 2015, a criminal court in Cairo sentenced three journalists – Mohamed Fahmy, Baher Mohamed and Peter Greste – to years in prison in a retrial of what has become known as the Al-Jazeera case. (With them, three young Egyptians were also sentenced, although not ever having worked for the TV-Station Al-Jazeera.)

The criticism at the now second farcial and clearly politically motivated verdict, accusing the journalists of "falsifying news" and broadcasting material that was "harmful to national security" by covering events happening in Egypt in 2013, was powerful. Human rights organisations, the world press and governments of the US, the UK, the Netherlands voiced their outrage and concern at this travesty of justice.

For the Egyptian government of President Sisi this was to be expected, seeing that nothing was done before the verdict to prevent such a development. Yet after the criticism of the verdict, Egypt today summoned the British Ambassador to express Egypt‘s rejection of "unacceptable interference". Egypt thus hopes to silence the world with its justified criticism and reporting – and fails epically.

See here just a ‘small‘ number of international media that has covered the sham trial in Cairo against the journalists – who did nothing else but their job: report the truth.

In trying to silence reporting by three journalists, Egypt has evoked for over 20 months now a constant reporting by hundreds of media outlets the world over. If anything has damaged the reputation of Egypt, the stubborn ruthlessness by the regime to attack a free press and individual journalists has.

A shot-in-foot story if ever there was one. And unless the regime of President Sisi finally gets this, the reporting and subsequently damaging of Egypt's reputation will continue. Worldwide. For as long as such attacks continue and definitely until the journalists Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed, criminally held in jail now, are set free and allowed to return to their families.